catalysiS…

Britain, it seems, has a new killer. As the number of swine flu casualties creeps up, each death is accompanied on the news by the “reassuring” information that the victim had other serious underlying health conditions. In other words not to worry; it wasn’t really swine flu that got them.

The message is obvious. Don’t fear swine flu, but stay clear of anyone with underlying health conditions.

Robert Shrimsley (Financial Times)

So… Are these lines parallel? What is your view on this subject?

If you say “no, they are not parallel” and someone comes and tells you that your view is a mere mind effect and that these lines are actually parallel… Will you buy into that? And what if the person telling you is a “financial specialist”? Will you then buy unknown and risky financial products which you have no idea on how they work and operate?

I was amazed when I got to know that a CEO defended “the tools and financial products became so complex and so difficult that after a certain point managers couldn’t actually understand what the products were really about”.

So… Would you buy something, would you spend your own hard earned money on something you actually don’t understand to the full extent? No? What if it’s not your money? What if the risks would actually pay off in the upcoming months for yourself and your career? What if doing so would get you a fat pension and great bonuses (even if all hell would break loose afterwards)? Would you do it then? I guess that most people falling in the category of “total absence of professional ethics or values, blind ambition and thirst for power” will have an instant answer for these questions…

Until now, if we exclude Madoff (small fish) did anyone ended up in jail?

The markets will probably keep falling until governments actually show that responsibility will be taken to those responsible.

So if you go to a bank and steal the safe, what will happen to you? Jail?

Now try this… Go to a senior management position and loose money that it’s not even yours in investments you don’t even understand. What will happen to you then? A fat pension?…

Worldwide. Everybody is feeling the mess. Some more than others.
Now it’s Citigroup… 50 000 people to lose their jobs. In general this is the result of business being run without any concern for ethics or for a very simple and beautiful concept. Something that is a product of nature, that humankind should put in place. A concept that I like in particular. Sustainability

We think we have everything figured out. Well… we don’t. Nature is giving us all the signs. Even the principles in which we base our economies are starting to show us that something is terribly wrong. We are pushing the limits. Signs from nature couldn’t be more worrying. Polar bears eating polar bears due to hunger (something never seen before by scientists).

To this point the reader of this post should be asking: “What have polar bears to do with job cuts and worldwide recession?”. There’s something called the butterfly effect in which the flap of a seagull’s wings could change the course of the weather forever. An example that tries to show the very basic principle of the theory of chaos as described and shown by the mathematician Edward Lorenz.

Current worldwide economies are based on unsustainable principles. Commodities are scarse and will get more and more expensive while worldwide population keeps expanding. That is the reality. It is happening now. However, companies and economies are analysed on the basis of their growth, compared with the growth of the year before which was benchmarked against the growth of the previous year. That growth does not stand for itself. Not only one has to increase revenue and profit, but also grow more than the competition while commodities continue increasing price, while wealth gets more localised, while population continues to expand. Planet Earth is uno. We cannot drill the Moon for oil or grow vegetables on Mars. All we have is on this beautiful blue pearl called Earth. Our development as rational animals should take nature into consideration. Continuing this path risks our own existance and well being. The planet has shown geologists that nature is fully able of completely erasing specific species. I do believe we are earning that result if we keep ignoring the most basic principles of nature.

As a sign of hope, the world has a new American president. One that showed capability and capacity during the campaign trail. Inteligence and discerning judgement. The less positive aspect was the continuous discussion around race. I got tired of watching channels argue who were the hispanic voters choose, or maybe the white voters would change their mind once the moment would come and choose Mcain due to colour affiliation. The United States of America as shown once again how great a country can be. How great a people can be. Voters decided for change, independent of colour or religion. I wish all the best to President Obama. I hope he’ll be able to put change in motion. We need it all around the world and the USA is the best place to start it. The USA has now the best person to start it.

As a closing sentence to this long post, I would like to leave a native Indian saying that encloses on itself the very basic principle of Sustainability… A phrase I like particularly.

“Only when the last tree has died, the last river poisoned and the last fish caught, only then will Man realise he cannot eat his money.”